At the present time, for vehicles with heat engines, the air conditioning system is conventionally composed of a compressor, a condenser and an evaporator. It is generally designed to provide considerable amounts of cold so as to cool the whole atmosphere of the car interior. The power required for the operation of these systems is taken from the engine. Some of the fresh air produced by these air conditioning systems is also used for the defrosting/defogging of the vehicle's windows, the cooled air having lost some of its water vapor during the cooling and therefore being farther from the saturation point than uncooled air.
In electric vehicles, it is considered at present that a maximum of the energy available in the electric batteries should be reserved for the propulsion of the vehicle only, to ensure that the vehicle has a sufficient range. Thus the present invention arose from the idea of separating the comfort functions, such as the air conditioning of the vehicle, from the safety functions such as defrosting/defogging, previously provided, in vehicles with heat engines, by a single system, namely the air conditioning system.
It is therefore useful to devise alternative systems which do not run on the energy of the batteries, or do so only to a small extent, in order to provide cooling functions for the requirements of defrosting/defogging the glazing units.
The problem may arise in a similar way, but to a lesser degree, in hybrid propulsion vehicles, that is to say vehicles propelled by a combination of a heat engine and an electrical machine.